Pembroke
by freyjaschariot
Summary: Felicity Smoak and Oliver Queen couldn't be more different. Felicity is a scholarship student from Las Vegas; Oliver is a trust fund baby from Starling City. They do have a few things in common, however. One: they both attend Pembroke Academy, an elite boarding school in rural New Hampshire. Two: they both have secrets they will do almost anything to keep. Arrow Boarding School AU
1. Chapter 1

Felicity's first thought as her taxi puttered up the long drive to Pembroke Academy was that the school was a goddamn castle. This fact shouldn't have surprised her; pictures of Pembroke's campus had dominated in the pages of the glossy catalogues and brochures that were stacked in a neat pile on the corner of her desk back home in Las Vegas. She knew that the buildings and grounds were all based on the ancestral home of Sir Walter Pembroke, the school's founder. The original castle sat on a lonely moor back in Wales; this one on a ridge in southern New Hampshire. Otherwise they were identical.

However, none of the photos could have prepared Felicity for the reality of castle's looming stone walls, its creeping ivy, the shadowy archways that seemed to lead nowhere and everywhere at once, or the three large turrets that thrust into the blazing blue sky overhead.

Felicity's seconds thought was: _this is a huge mistake._

She must have arrived just between classes, because Pembroke's student population swarmed all around the taxi as it tried to make its way up to the castle's main entrance. The students barely glanced at the cab, even as some dodged in front of it to get to buildings on the other side of the driveway; they were literally and metaphorically untouchable and they knew it.

Everywhere there was the flash of glossy hair, white teeth, and immaculately pressed gold and green uniforms. Felicity glanced down at her own worn combat boots, still coated in a fine layer of Las Vegas dust and felt more out of place than she had in her entire life.

_MIT,_she thought, sucking down a gulp of stale taxicab air, _remember. This will be worth it._

For the tenth time that morning she wished she had let her mother come drop her off. At the time thy had discussed it, as Felicity had stood in the kitchen of their two bedroom apartment in Vegas imagining herself arriving here, she had wanted to do it alone, as her own independent woman. Now all she wanted was someone to squeeze her hand and tell her that everything was going to be okay.

The taxi driver parked the cab in the rotunda in front of the castle's main entrance and got out to unload Felicity's bags. The skin of Felicity's thighs stuck to the seat as she pushed herself out after him. The temperature had been 79 degrees Fahrenheit when her plane had touched down that morning and it had only gotten hotter since. She shielded her eyes from the stabbing sunlight as she gazed around the campus. Laughter rippled across the grass, a bell peeled somewhere overhead, and the students began to dissolve the buildings that lined the driveway and into the castle itself.

"Where do you want the bags, Miss?" The cab driver asked. He seemed as uncomfortable at Pembroke as Felicity. His eyes flickered around the too bright campus, his hands fluttering aimlessly around his rumpled, half-tucked in shirt.

Felicity pressed her lips together. "I'm not sure"

The email she had received from the enrollment office last week stated that a student ambassador would greet her outside the main entrance when she arrived. So far no one had so much as made eye contact with her. She glanced around for someone to ask for help but most of the students had disappeared like rabbits into holes in the ground at the sound of the bell, and only a few flustered looking ones were left rushing across the grass clutching leather bookbags to their shoulders while bright white sheets of papers flapped at their sides. Then even they were gone.

Felicity stomach churned. Maybe they had forgotten she was arriving today. Or maybe not sending someone to meet her was her punishment for changing her mind two weeks into the semester and deciding to come after all. Or maybe, she thought, the whole thing had been a practical joke from the very beginning; the invitation to apply, the acceptance letter, the scholarship, all the brochures and magazines, they were all elements of an elaborate hoax.

Just as Felicity was beginning to despair a blonde head appeared around the corner of the castle. The head was followed by a body which belonged to a short girl in a rumpled Pembroke uniform who strode across the grass to where Felicity and the taxi driver hovered uncertainly. The girl fussed with her uniform as she walked, straightening the green and gold tie at her neck and tucking the tail of her shirt into her skirt. She wore a windblown smile and a head of tussled golden hair and Felicity felt herself relax slightly at the sight of her, oddly comforted by the fact that dishevelment did in fact exist within the Pembroke's boundaries. As the girl approached, she stuck her hand out.

"Hi," she said, "Are you Felicity?"

Felicity nodded and shook the girl's hand. She had a surprisingly strong grip for someone with so small.

"Great! I'm Sara Lance. I'm the new student ambassador. I'm so sorry for being late. I got, ah..caught up in something."

Out of the corner of her eye, Felicity saw another girl emerge from the corner Sara had appeared from. The second girl was taller and the sun bounced off her long dark hair as she glanced over at them. A slight smile played around her lips as she disappeared into one of the other buildings that lined the drive.

"It's really nice to meet you," Felicity said. "You're the first person I've seen who seems like a real person. Everyone else just looks so put together—" Felicity winced. "I'm sorry that came out wrong. I didn't mean that you don't look put together, it's just I'm all sweaty and then I saw you and I just felt better because you looked kind of rumpled—" _Shut up, brain!_ "—and I'm going to stop talking now because I sound like an idiot."

Sara watched her ramble with the affectionate, amused expression of someone watching a kitten get tangled up in a ball of string.

"You're cute," she said. "And seriously, don't worry. Everyone here might look like they've got it together at first glance but trust me, 60% of the student body is half way to their first stint in rehab. You seem like you have a good head on your shoulders. You're going to be just fine."

Felicity smiled. "You know that probably shouldn't make me feel better but it kind of does."

Sara laughed. "I thought it might." She glanced over at the small pile of suitcases at the end of the taxi. "Is that all of your stuff?"  
>Felicity nodded. "This and a few things I shipped ahead."<p>

"We can just leave it there for now," Sara said. "One of the porters will bring it up to the dorm later."

_Porters?_ Felicity thought incredulously.

The taxi driver looked relieved when Felicity pressed money into his hand and thanked him for the ride. She felt a pang of unease as the cab disappeared down the driveway, as though her last tie to real world had just rattled away, abandoning her to high walls, ivy, and a student population with a high content of hard drug users.

"Do you have your rooming assignment?" Sara asked.

"Um, yes," Felicity pulled the wrinkled paper on which she'd written the school's address and her room assignment from the back pocket of her jeans. "The Queen Dormitory?"

Sara beamed. She was pretty in the kind of laid back, rumpled way that seemed to belong at a beach among surfer girls and skaters, not private schools and trust funds.

"That's where I am!" she said, linking her arm through Felicity's and walking her toward the castle doors. She lowered her voice. "Seriously, don't listen to anything you hear. We're the best dormitory by far. You're going to love it. So, you ready for the grand tour?"

The grand tour began in the dining hall with its high, beamed ceiling and rows of narrow oak tables. Sunlight spilled through tall eastern facing windows, turning the dust in the air to swirls of gold.

"We're supposed to sit by year, but really you can go wherever you want," Sara said.

After that they peeked into the rec room where several students were playing foosball while others watched a movie on an expansive TV and then Sara pointed out several classrooms where Felicity might have lectures. "Most of the classrooms in the castle are for the humanities: history, literature, Latin. That kind of thing. The science classrooms and computer labs are in the buildings you drove by on the way up here.

Sara ended the tour at their dormitory, which was housed in one of the castle's three turrets. A small plaque on the arched door read: QUEEN

"All the dorms are named after families who gave a shit ton of money to the school," she explained, as she turned a skeleton key in the large metal lock. "This one's named for the Queen family. Oliver and Thea Queen both go here. You'll probably meet them at some point."

Felicity had seen Oliver Queen's picture on the news a hundred times and probably heard the story of how he and his father had been ship wreaked somewhere in the South China Sea just as often. Both Queens had been presumed dead for almost three years until a fishing trawler had discovered Oliver living alone on an inhospitable island and brought him back to the US. He seemed more like a myth to Felicity than a real person. It felt strange to be told that she might meet him.

Felicity turned her attention to the room she would be living in for the next two years. Six four posted beds were set up in circular fashion against the wall. Felicity's things sat in a neat pile at the base of one of the beds furthest from the door. Cold air pumped out of hidden vents, cooling the sweat that had percolated between Felicity's shoulder blades and reminding her that despite the castle's rustic appearance it had more amenities than a Ritz Carlton.

Not that Felicity had ever been in a Ritz Carlton. She had, however, once she had stayed in Las Vegas University dorm for a computer science competition. That room had had cinderblock walls, vinyl mattresses, and definitely no air conditioning. At the time she had thought it was pretty nice.

"Oh great, someone got your stuff," Sara said. "So I guess that bed's yours. I'm right over here." She pointed to a bed next to the door. "And my friend Nyssa is right there." She pulled out her phone out of her pocket, and glanced at the time. "I have chem lab in ten minutes so I better go. Do you have a plan for the rest of the day? You're not starting classes today, are you?"

Felicity shook her head. "I have a meeting with the dean at 3:30. Other than that I'm just going to unpack." She wiped a lock of sweaty hair out of her face. "I might take a shower too."

"The bathrooms are down the hall to the right. I'm done with class at 6. Do you want to meet me in the dining hall for dinner then?"

"That would be great," Felicity said. If she was being honest, she had imagined herself eating alone for the rest of eternity.

"Awesome. Good luck with Dean Winters," Sara said as she backed toward the door. "Whatever you do, don't stare at his mole. He hates that. Oh, and don't stare at his toupee. Actually might want to just avoid eye contact with any part of him if you can. There's a calendar with the boy's rowing team on it behind his desk. I usually try to focus on that at that." With that she disappeared out the door.

For the first time since Felicity had arrived at Pembroke she was alone.

She drifted to one of the wide windows set in the stone wall. It looked out onto the grounds behind castle, where a white pagoda sat next to small lake bordered with curving reeds. The water's mirror-like surface reflected the blue sky and puffy clouds drifting overhead. Beyond the lake the land rolled into thickly forested foothills that rose and fell like humped shoulders and beyond that brown and green mountains thrust up to meet the sky. It was a beautiful. And it could not have looked more different from the home Felicity had left behind.

To Felicity, who was used to the Las Vegas' unending flatness extending in all directions; the mountains and hills seemed foreboding and mysterious, like they were hiding some kind of dark secret within their dips and vales.

A bead of sweat rolled between Felicity's shoulder blades and she glanced down at her watch. She had two hours before her meeting with the dean. Just enough time to take a shower and put most of her things away. Felicity rummaged through her duffle bag until she found a towel and a pair of flip-flops then walked down the hall to the first bathroom she saw.

The water pressure in Pembroke's showers was 100 times better than the weak stream that dripped out of the one Felicity shared with her mom at home. The pounding water beat the sweat and ache and dust from her body and swirling steam and familiar smell of her strawberry shampoo soothed her frazzled nerves. When Felicity shut off the water fifteen minutes later she felt infinitely more optimistic about this whole boarding school situation. She wrapped herself in her towel, stepped out of the stall, and let out a small yelp.

A boy stood at the line of sinks against the wall dressed in nothing but a towel wrapped around his waist. He held a bottle of shaving cream in one hand and a razor in the other. His eyebrows rose in surprise at the sight of her.

"Oh, Jesus, I'm sorry," Felicity said. "You surprised me. I didn't realize this was a co-ed bathroom."

The boy was tall, tanned, and lean. He had close-cropped sandy brown hair and what her mother's trashy magazines would have called "washboard abs." He looked strangely familiar but Felicity couldn't place why. He cocked his head to the side as she spoke. The bird-like quality of the gesture caught her off guard. It seemed too delicate for someone so…solid.

"It's not," he said.

"It's not—?"

The boy glanced at the door and Felicity followed his gaze. MEN was printed in tall, black lettering on the wood. _Well, fuck._

"Oh my god," she said. "I am so sorry. This is your bathroom. I'm mean, not yours personally. Just that you're a boy. A man, really. A boy-man."_Shut up, shut up, shut up,_she thought. But that was like asking the rain to stop falling halfway to the ground. "And I'm a girl," she continued, "you know, boobs and .." she trailed off, cheeks burning"…all that jazz."

The boy had the darkest blue eyes she had ever seen. A hint of a smile played around his lips. Was he just going to stand there and stare at her?

"Okay, then" she said. "I should probably go and let you get on with your, um, manly shaving activities."

With as much dignity as she could manage, Felicity straightened her shoulders and squelched past him and out the door.


	2. Chapter 2

Not looking at Dean Winter's mole proved more difficult than Felicity expected. It was shaped like Texas and sat just below his left eye so that all of Felicity's attempts to maintain a respectful level of eye contact kept morphing into mole contact instead.

Keeping her gaze away from his toupee was almost as difficult. The color of ink, it sat atop his head like the pelt of a petrified animal. Even worse, it lilted ever so slightly to the right. Felicity's perfectionist fingers itched to reach out and straighten it.

In the end she resorted to Sara's tactic of staring at the boys' rowing team calendar pinned to the wall just behind the dean's left ear. She found that if she trained her eyes on the navel of the particularly well-built red head in the front row she could project the appearance of eye contact while actually basking the rower's ab-tacular glory.

"It says here that you're enrolled in Advanced Computer Science, Calculus I, English Literature, History of the Roman Empire, and French," the dean said, riffling through a file on is desk. "Does that sound correct?"

Felicity nodded. "Yes, sir."

He peered at her over the top of his gold-frame glasses. "And you are aware that the terms of your scholarship stipulate that you must be involved in at least one extracurricular activity?"

"Um." Felicity hadn't remembered that. She worried her bottom lip with her teeth. "It doesn't have to be a sport does it? Because I'm really bad on my feet. When I was twelve I got a concussion playing softball— it's a long story. Basically, I hit myself in the head with the bat. Huh. Guess it's not that long." She fiddled with a loose thread on her t-shirt. "Anyway, I tend to do my best work lying down." She froze. _Oh God, please tell me I did not just say that._"I meant like coding! I do it in my bed a lot of the time…" she trailed off as the dean's Texas-shaped mole twitched with displeasure.

"Ms. Smoak, that kind of crude humor may have won you friends where you come from but here at Pembroke we strive for a higher level of sophistication."

"I'm sorry," Felicity said in a small voice. "I didn't mean to be crude."

"As for your question—no it does not have to be a sport. There are plenty of other activities you could become involved in. The debate team perhaps?"

Felicity grimaced. With her tendency to put her foot in her mouth, the debate team seemed like the worst possible activity for her to join. Perhaps even worse than being forced to play softball again. A different idea sprung to her mind. "Could I tutor?" she asked. I could definitely do computer science but I'm also good at math, bio, and physics."

"Perhaps that would be best," the dean said wrly. He made a note on her file. "I'll let the head of the Peer to Peer Tutoring Center know that you'll be stopping by to set up your hours." He shut the file and folded his hands on top of it. "Do you have any other questions for me?"

Felicity shook her head. She was anxious to get out of there before she said something else she'd regret.

He waved a hand toward the door. "Then you're free to go."

Felicity was out of her chair in record time. As she laid her hand on the doorknob, Dean Winters called, "And Ms. Smoak—"  
>Felicity looked back.<p>

"I meant what I said about holding yourself to a higher standard while at Pembroke. You are now a student at my institution I expect your comportment to reflect the utmost respect for that privilege." He said "my institution" the way other people said "my child."

Felicity swallowed. "Yes, sir."

"Go on, then."

As fast as she could, she went.

Felicity spent the rest of the time before dinner until walking around campus with her schedule, staking out all of her classrooms. She also went to the Tutoring Center and set up a tutoring timetable with the waiflike woman who ran it.

Everywhere she went, Felicity felt like there was a giant neon sign hanging over her head alternatively flashing "new girl" and "scholarship student". She hadn't thought to change into her uniform after showering and her combat boots, worn jeans, and Las Vegas University t-shirt made her about inconspicuous amongst the coiffed and uniformed student body as a cheesepuff on a platter of caviar.

Even if she had changed, she doubted that a uniform would have done much to help her blend in. Pembroke only had a few hundred students and most of them had attended the same private education institutions since their designer preschool days. Curious stares followed her across the quad, raking her up and down with unapologetic interest. Feeling like an exotic animal in a zoo, Felicity took to ducking her head as she walked.

When she arrived in the dining hall a few minutes past six Sara was sitting at the long table closest to the door with the dark haired girl Felicity had noticed follow her from behind the castle her earlier that day. Sara waved her over and Felicity sunk gratefully into the seat beside her.

"Felicity, this is Nyssa," Sara said, gesturing to the dark-haired girl. "Nyssa, this Felicity, the new girl in our dorm I told you about."

Where Sara was rumpled, laidback, and cute, Nyssa looked like she had just walked off a high fashion runway. She had flat cheekbones, wide, dark eyes, and an elegant nose. Thick locks of shiny black hair hung down to the middle of her back.

"Hi," Felicity said. "It's really nice to meet you."

Nyssa raised one perfectly arched eyebrow at Felicity before returning her attention to the slice of blueberry pie in front of her.

"Don't mind her," Sara said. "She's got the social skills of a particularly vivacious doorknob."

Nyssa continued eating her pie as though Sara hadn't spoken.

"How was your meeting with the Dean?" Sara asked, piling mashed potatoes into her plate. Dishes of foods littered the length of the table. There seemed to be no coherent theme linking them into a meal; the options ranged from bowls of candied carrots to platters piled high with golden brown grilled cheese.

"Just perfect" Felicity said, reaching for a grilled cheese. "As long as you ignore the fact that I implied I was a prostitute when he asked me about my extracurriculars."

Nyssa snorted through a mouthful of pie and Sara's eyebrows shot up.

"How did you do that?" Sara asked.

"I may have accidentally I told him I do my best work lying down."

This time Nyssa outright laughed. "That's hilarious." She set down her fork and offered Felicity her hand. "Hi. I'm Nyssa by the way."

Felicity grinned. "Felicity Smoak."

"Really?" Sara said, looking between them. "I literally just introduced you guys."

Nysssa shrugged and picked up her fork again. "I thought she was boring then. Now I don't. Got any other good stories, new girl?

Felicity was about to tell them about the shower incident when the boy in question strolled into the dining hall, followed closely by two other boys, one with dark skin, a shaved head, and muscles bulging through his button down, the other shorter and slighter with casually ruffled dark hair and dimpled cheeks.

"Oh crap," Felicity said, ducking her head behind Sara's shoulder. "It's him."

"It's who?" Sara asked glancing toward the new entrants. "You mean Oliver?"

"Oliver?" Felicity slowed lifted her gaze as the boys slipped into a bench a few tables away. Suddenly it hit her why the boy had seemed so familiar. "Wait. _That's_ Oliver Queen?"

Sara sighed. "Pembroke Academy's one and only billionaire castaway. Did you meet him today?"

Felicity groaned internally. He had looked different in the pictures she'd seen on TV; emaciated, dirty, and bruised, with a straggly beard to boot. But now that she knew it was him she couldn't believe she hadn't realized who he was before.

"You could say that," Felicity said. She explained how she had used the wrong bathroom.

She spooned buttered peas onto her plate and watched them roll aimlessly into a puddle of ketchup. Felicity didn't know why the fact that it was Oliver Queen who had witnessed her embarrassment should make the whole thing any worse but somehow it did. She was living in a dorm with his family's name on it, for God's sake. And she had called him a boy-man.

Nyssa's grin gave her a foxlike appearance. "That's great." She looked at Sara. "I like this girl. Can we keep her?"

"Shut up and eat your pie," Sara said to Nyssa. She turned to Felicity. "Seriously don't worry about it. Trust me, Oliver has absolutely no business judging anyone. Once in first year, Tommy, that's the boy sitting next to him, the one with the dark hair. He dared Oliver to streak across the quad. Long story short, they were drunk and Oliver only made it halfway across the grass before he fell asleep under a tree. He was still there when everyone was going to class the next morning. Suffice it to say, 80% of this school has seen the Queen family jewels."

Felicity's brain was suddenly flooded with images of Oliver Queen butt-naked, curled up beneath a tree watched over by a family of inquisitive squirrels. Based on the extensive look at his body she'd gotten in the bathroom, her mind could construct the scene in intricate detail. She shoved a spoonful of peas into her mouth to cover up her burning cheeks.

"Anyway," Sara said, "forget about Oliver. You're both coming to my soccer game after this right? It's just a scrimmage but we're going to kick ass."

Sara's team did kick ass. Felicity cheered from the bleachers while Nyssa sat beside her maintaining a haughtily bored expression. Felicity couldn't helped but be impressed with the Nyssa's ability to appear thoroughly uninterested for extended periods of time without all of her features melting off her face. When Felicity was bored she turned into a drooling, glazed over idiot. Nyssa looked like she was unconsciously posing for a fashion spread. When Felicity told her this Nyssa smiled, for the first time without any hint of irony.

"We're definitely keeping you," she said.

By the time the game ended the sun had dipped behind the mountains and the tops of the trees glowed red and gold in the faltering light. Long shadows followed the girls across the grass as they made their way back up to the castle, accompanied by the low thrum of cicadas.

Sara and Nyssa dropped Felicity off at the dorm before leaving again for the showers. It was only eight o'clock but Felicity felt like she been awake for a full week. As she pulled on her comfiest pajamas, an old worn t-shirt of her mom's and a pair of panda bear boy shorts, she wondered when the rest of their roommates would show up.  
>Felicity slipped into bed and opened her laptop with the intention of teaching herself a new coding program. The next thing she knew, she was being shaken awake, dragged from the warm depths of slumber and back to reality.<p>

"Uh-uhnn," Felicity mumbled, "five more minutes." But the shaking continued so she peeled her leaden eyelids apart and blinked blearily into the sunlight streaming in through the tall windows. As her eyes adjusted the white blur was replaced by Sara's face floating above her.

"Wake up, new girl," she said, grinning. "You don't want to be late for your first day."


	3. Chapter 3

Felicity fumbled with her tie for five minutes before Sara took pity on her. "Let me," she said, shooing Felicity's hands out of the way. She deftly looped one end of the tie over the other and tugged it through the hole they made. "There," she said, stepping back to admire her handiwork. "Congratulations." She grinned. "Now you look as pretentious as the rest of us."

Felicity stared at her reflection in the mirror over her bureau. The Pembroke uniform consisted of a white button down, a gold and green striped tie, knee high socks, and a green skirt. With her hair was pulled back in a neat ponytail, Felicity could almost pass for one of the girls in the school catalog. She hardly recognized herself.

"Didn't you ever help you dad with his tie when you were growing up?" Sara asked, watching her with an amused expression.

Felicity shook her head. "My dad left us when I was little so…" She carefully avoided catching Sara's eye. There was nothing worse than the flash of pity when people realized she'd been abandoned.

"God, who has the social skills of a doorknob now, Sara?" Nyssa lay on her back atop her bed weaving small braids into her long hair. "I'm sorry your dad's a douche, Felicity."

Sara shot Nyssa a glare before looking back to Felicity. "I'm sorry. I didn't know."

Felicity waved away her apology. "It's okay. It's been a long time. And my mom's great so I don't really have anything to complain about. Anyway," she said, trying to keep her tone bright. "I'm starving. Breakfast?"

"Ugh, yes please," Nyssa said, rolling off her bed. "You guys take forever to get ready. I'm dying over here."

Nyssa had the most low maintenance morning routine Felicity had ever seen. She didn't own an ounce of makeup and rarely brushed her hair. It fell down her back in perfect beachy waves entirely of its own volition. Felicity would have been lying if she said she wasn't tab envious.

"We can't all wake up looking like runway models, Nyssa" Sara said, rolling her eyes.

"Hey, my stomach shouldn't have to suffer just cause I happened to get a winning ticket in the genetic lottery," Nyssa replied. "Now come on before I eat you for breakfast."

Despite Felicity's declaration of hunger, talking about her father had thoroughly quashed her appetite. She picked at a plate of eggs while Sara and Nyssa chatted about homework and plans for the weekend.

If her father found out what she'd done— if anyone found out- what was the prison sentence for cyber theft? Maybe they'd let her off easy because she was a minor. Felicity stabbed a hash brown with her fork and mushed it around her eggs. She didn't think she'd do well in prison. For one, she seriously doubted they had L'Oreal Ash Blond LB01. Though brown roots would be the least of her problems—

"Felicity?"

"Hm?"

Sara and Nyssa were staring at her with matching sets of raised eyebrows.

"Are you ok?" Sara asked. "You were muttering something about there not being Doritos in prison."

Felicity flushed. _Damn you, brain to mouth filter._ "Oh, yeah. I had a dream about being in prison last night. Weird, huh?" She laughed nervously and tugged at the end of her ponytail.

"I had a dream I was in prison once," Nyssa said, casually spearing a sausage with her knife. "I ran that joint, let me tell you."

A bell rang overhead and the room filled with the sound of benches scrapping against the floor and the clatter of plates and silverware as the students stood up to head for class.  
>"What do you have first?" Sara asked, glancing at Felicity as she swung her leg over the bench.<p>

"Tutoring."

"Lucky," Nyssa said, as they wove their way to the doors. "I have fencing. My dad's forcing me to take it. As if I need more ways to make men squirm."

They parted ways in the entrance hall and Felicity took the large curving staircase up to the second floor. The tutoring center was a bright, white walled room with large windows that looked out onto the quad below. Eight workstations filled the room, each with its own sleek desktop computer.

Mrs. Lusky, the petite, severe looking woman who ran the tutoring center, showed Felicity to a desk in the back of the room. "I have you down for Computer Science, biology, physics, and math up to Calculus I," she said, glancing down at her clipboard. "So if anyone comes in for those things I'll send them back. You can work on your own assignments until then."

Felicity didn't have any homework yet but she took out the assigned book for her Roman history class, Livy's _Ab Urbe Condita_, and opened it to the introduction. Her attention soon drifted to the three boys playing with a frisbee on the emerald lawn below. Felicity's eyes followed the red disc's path without really seeing it. The frisbee had sparked a memory of her dad she hadn't realized she still had. She was sitting in his lap at a family picnic, tracing the lines across his palm with her pudgy little kid fingers, while two older girls whose faces escaped her _cousins, maybe? family friends?_ tossed a frisbee in front of them. She had felt safe and warm and utterly content. A pang of regret stabbed Felicity's heart. So much had changed.

"Felicity Smoak?"

"Huh?" Felicity tore her gaze away from the window. The voice belonged to none other than Oliver Queen. He stood in front of her, his schoolbag slung casually over one shoulder, watching her with a half-smile. Sunlight streamed through the window, turning his sandy hair gold and illuminating the flecks of turquoise in his eyes. Felicity swallowed. He was a little too attractive, if she was quite honest. It was unnerving.

"Hi," he said. "I'm—"

"I know who you are," Felicity said, too quickly. "I mean, you're kind of famous around here. And just in general, actually. With the whole dying thing. And then the not dying thing. And I saw you in the bathroom yesterday. Although you had a lot less clothes on then." She sucked down a breath and tapped her pen anxiously on the desktop. "And I'm going to stop talking now. Can I help you with something?"

The corner of Oliver's mouth had slowly quirked as he listened to her babble. "I was told you were the one to see with computer trouble."

"Sure," Felicity said, thankful for something hands-on to do. "I like computers. What's the problem?"

Oliver held up a laptop riddled with— _were those bullet holes?_ "My laptop had an accident."

Felicity let out a low whistle. "That seems like an understatement." She took the laptop from him and ran her hands over the puckered holes in the metal. "How did this even happen?"

Oliver folded his arms and lounged against the edge of her desk. "My friend Tommy likes to hunt."

Felicity glanced up from the laptop, one eyebrow raised. "For computers?"

"He has bad aim," Oliver said, in a tone that conveyed quite clearly that that was as much information as she was going to get. "So do you think there's any chance you could recover the files from it?"

"I don't know," Felicity said truthfully. She had never handled technology this damaged before. She hadn't lived in the best neighborhood in Vegas but it wasn't exactly raining bullets either. "If the hard drive isn't damaged too badly it might be possible."

"If you could try, I'd be really grateful." Oliver's tone was carefully pleasant. He knew his story was ridiculous. He was trusting her not to press him. Or maybe he just trusted himself to be charming enough that she didn't want to.

Felicity should have resented him for it. He was clearly withholding information from her. Yet she found herself wanting to help him instead and it wasn't about the fact that he was Oliver Queen or that he had one of the nicest jawlines she had ever seen on a human being. It was about herself. The laptop presented a challenge Felicity had never tackled before. She wanted to prove she could do what he was asking.

Felicity pushed her glasses up her nose. "I'll do my best," she said. "That's all I can promise."

"Great," Oliver said. He had a small pale scar just above his left eyebrow. Felicity had a sudden urge to brush her fingers against it. _Do not do that,_the rational part of her brain warned. She clasped her hands in her lap, just in case.

"So you'll let me know if you find anything?" Oliver asked.

Felicity nodded.

"Well, see you around." As he backed away he cracked a smile. "Maybe in the boy's showers again?"

Felicity flushed and opened her mouth to retort but he was already gone.

After Oliver, Mrs. Lusky sent Felicity a procession of kids looking for help with bio and calculus. One anxious first-year was on the verge of tears over the concept of cellular respiration. As Felicity attempted to explain how glucose and oxygen turned into carbon dioxide, water, and energy, her gaze kept wandering to the shot-up laptop sitting on the corner of her desk. Her fingers itched to take it apart and sum up the damage. And if she was being honest, she was intensely curious about what she would find if she managed to access the files. What could be so important that Oliver Queen, who by all normal standards had unlimited resources, didn't just go out and buy a replacement computer? If he were any other teenage boy, Felicity might have guessed it was his secret porn stash. Somehow she didn't think that was what Oliver was after.

She forced her eyes away from the laptop and back to the panicking first year. She was going to figure out a way to get to those files. Whatever was on Oliver's computer, she'd known soon enough.


End file.
